After looking at ways to work through paint-color procrastination and how to find color inspiration all around you, we are ready to tackle the last, and possibly most challenging, part of our color series: the whole-house paint palette.
If picking one paint color is tricky, how on earth do you find colors for an entire house? How can you know they will go together? Where do you even begin? Join us as we navigate the process of selecting colors for a whole house, and gather inspiration (and maybe a little courage) to tackle your own walls.
NOTE WHICH ROOMS ARE VISIBLE TO ONE ANOTHER
Walk through your house and note which spaces you can see from each room. Use a floor plan (a rough sketch is fine) to keep track.
Adjoining rooms are part of this, but you may be able to see quite a bit farther — down a hall and into the kitchen, for instance. These notes will form the basis of your whole-house color plan, so keep them close at hand.
START BY PICKING OUT A COLOR FOR THE BIGGEST, MOST CENTRALLY LOCATED ROOM
This will most likely be your living room or kitchen, and it’s a great place to start working on your whole-house palette.
If picking colors has been stressing you out, choosing a soft, neutral hue for the main room will make picking the other colors easier. And you really can’t go wrong with white.
OR START WITH THE ROOM YOU WANT TO PAINT THE BOLDEST COLOR
If you love color and have a certain hue in mind for a specific room, you can start there instead. Looking out from the bold-hued room, choose a softer, more subdued color for the next rooms. You can, of course, put bold colors next to each other, but that does carry more risk — painter, beware!
BUILD YOUR PALETTE WITH SHADES OF THE SAME HUE
Once you have a paint color picked for your first room, one simple way to move on is to choose shades of the same hue for adjacent rooms or walls. You can choose a hue from a nearby paint chip, pick the next color up or down on the same paint chip, or even have the same color mixed at the paint store with white added to make a lighter version.
The beauty of this method is that, while it will give your home interest and depth, you also can rest assured that the colors will go well together.
CONSIDER KEEPING CONNECTING SPACES NEUTRAL
White, beige, greige and the like are fairly foolproof choices for halls and landings, and they give the eye a place to rest between areas of more saturated color.
On the other hand, if you have decided to stick with white or soft neutrals in your rooms, the halls and landings can be a great place to experiment with a richer hue. It doesn’t need to be a big departure from the other colors you are using — just a shade or two darker is enough to make an impact.
